#les miserable

We talk all the time about mental health and unpacking traumas garnered from childhood but that is a modern benefit we have from being educated on our own well-being. I doubt that the majority of us could begin to comprehend the trauma of literally being born and raised in a prison during a time period where you are considered almost subhuman by nature of your birth.

Javert stood no chance in life, there was no opportunity for him, he did the best he could to survive psychologically and physically in an intolerable existence of poverty, self-loathing, political and social oppression, and an utter absence of faith. Did he do bad things? Yes, by OUR standards but not by the majority of the people of the time which is why Hugo had him do them so he could put across his point of view on the general consensus.

Stunning pics of Hugh performing Valjean’s Soliloquy from the weekend. The emotion!

Dunk is basically a Victor Hugo protagonist dropped into Westeros. He’s big, poor, uneducated, constantly afraid of doing the wrong thing but his moral compass is instinctive. He doesn’t know the law, heraldry, or politics, but he knows when something is wrong, and he acts anyway, even when it costs him everything.

Like Jean Valjean, Dunk is defined by mercy rather than ambition, repeatedly punished for trying to do the right thing and a walking indictment of the system just by existing. And Egg is the revolutionary lens the child who should inherit power but is forced to see what power actually does to people when you’re small and hungry. That’s why Aegon V becomes the only Targaryen who genuinely tries to reform the realm: he lived it.